Posts Tagged ‘Seattle’

Is Seattle getting better? Well…yeah. In my own mind this is so clear that the question is always a surprise.

The discussion is generally about pace of growth. It’s easy to understand slow-growthers’ points, like how cheap everything used to be, the comfort of the familiar, or the ease of parking.

But it’s the big-city traits that impress me, like density, walkability, transit, diversity, and energy. One of the great journeys of life is watching this city turn into something greater.

Some of our neighborhood business and mixed-use districts had better retail in the 70s and 80s, but way fewer people lived there, and these places tended to lack energy. Yes there was parking — it dominated the fringes of many areas, like moats of nothingness. Seattle (in-town) has grown by over 20% since we bottomed out in 1986, and a lot of the growth has gone to urban villages. The difference is even more stark in greater Downtown, where many edge neighborhoods were wastelands.

Of course more stuff in proximity usually means greater walkability. We have physical and policy problems there (the City often doesn’t walk its talk), but we did then, too.

We’re finally getting light rail, and not just a line but a network. Each new line magnifies the value of the lines that connect to it. Our bus service is less exciting, with service far too limited, due in large part to the 80/20 rule. Because the County might never sober up, we need Seattle to subsidize buses the way the State subsidizes Amtrak, possibly with a levy.

We’ve improved immeasurably on the diversity front. While we’ve lost ground on some fronts as the poor areas have edged southward, Seattle has also had big influxes, such as Vietnamese, Russians, Ethiopians, and others. Today’s Seattle is more worldly and interesting, and as Microsoft can tell you, we’ve gained priceless talent (which I hope we don’t lose due to misguided immigration law).

Parks are another improvement area. Downtown still lacks central green space, but the edges are doing better.

By the way, here is Stephen Cysewski’s astonishingly cool photo collection about Seattle in the 70s and 80s.

Some things never change in Seattle. Like the weather. But wait a minute. The last two years have brought us snow that stuck with a vengeance my childhood self could only have dreamed of. So I guess that’s out.

How about the familiarity of our neighborhoods? There’s actually been a lot of change there. It’s hard to make that old Almost Live seatbelt-hanging-out-the-door-of-the-double-parked-Volvo joke anymore in Ballard, and all the old skid rows now house trendy haunts that stock booster seats.

Dick's burgers are still cheap

What about being a one-company town? The Boeing town that became the land of Microsoft that became Starbucksville is now home to so many little (and not so little) start-ups that it’s pretty hard for us to be pigeonholed as a workforce.

So what hasn’t changed in the last few decades? We still don’t have high-speed light rail criss-crossing the city, but it’s getting closer. And the Viaduct still stands, but supposedly its days are numbered. The Seattle Center and the Market are both growing cobwebs, but Pike Place Market repairs are on the way.

It seems we’re changing a lot. Knute Berger’s Mossback column this month talks about the ways we’ve gotten better. Berger, who admits he more often complains “about more people, more condos, bad traffic, and grocery-bag taxes,” lists “Five things that make even a Mossback happy.”

Among the acheivements: getting greener and making investments in our cultural infrastructure, like the Central Library, the Sculpture Park and neighborhood libraries. Berger says we’re also more diverse, and our food is better.

P.S. Not everyone is happy with all the changes. That irreverent little blog that disses Seattle condos is back up. . .

The regional government should have fewer members than the current regional council, Nickels said, and more authority over the region’s dollars.

Marchione said he would support having a regional body that functions that way. Degginger said after the forum that while he would support improvement in regional government, he isn’t sure what form it should take.

Nickels mentioned differences of opinion on gun control and transportation. He mentioned the Legislature’s “shot-gun marriage” of roads and transit on November’s failed Prop. 1.

If the region’s economy were extracted, Nickels said, it would be the 25th largest state, or would be a country larger than Venezuela or Equador. But he said the region is held back because the rest of the state doesn’t understand its needs.

“King County, Pierce County, Snohomish County; we have a lot in common,” Nickels said. “I’m serious when I say we ought to look at declaring independence.”

About this Blog

Welcome to the Daily Journal of Commerce's SeattleScape blog. This blog focuses on how Seattle shapes itself -- its design, its planning and its aspirations. We will talk about what we're building, what we're losing and what we're preserving.

Opinions expressed by bloggers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.

About SeattleScape's Bloggers

Patrick Doherty is economic development director for the city of Federal Way. He previously worked for the city of Seattle in planning and development, including managing the Design Review Program from 1994 to 2001. Patrick chaired the Queen Anne/Magnolia/South Lake Union Design Review Board from 2006 to 2008. He lives on Queen Anne Hill, enjoys exploring the city and the greater Pacific Northwest, photography, foreign languages and national and international travel.

Matt Hays has loved Seattle since birth. He lives in Belltown, walks
nearly everywhere, and recently rediscovered bicycling. Matt is
slightly obsessed with issues like pedestrian safety, parks and
vibrant neighborhoods. He's read every DJC since high school. Since
1996 Matt has been the proposal writer at Lease Crutcher Lewis.

Darby Watson is an urban planner and designer for Arup. She previously worked for the City of Seattle managing the Complete Streets program for SDOT. She is a former Seattle Design Commissioner and former Chair of the Urban Design and Preservation Division of the American Planning Association. She developed her (sometimes) keen sense of urbanism riding metro from Magnolia to Franklin High School in her teenage years.

She recently relocated to San Francisco and hopes to share her design and planning discoveries from the City by the Bay as well as reminisce about her native habitat.

Walter Schacht, FAIA is the managing principal at Schacht Aslani Architects. He is recognized for creating strong, modern buildings that transform educational, cultural and civic institutions, and for promoting public policies that advance the architectural community. Walter is an appointed member of the AIA Seattle Public Policy Board, a gubernatorial appointee to the State's Capital Projects Advisory Board and is AIA Washington Council's representative to the Architects and Engineers Legislative Council.

Charles R. (Chuck) Wolfe, M.R.P., J.D. is an attorney in Seattle, where he focuses on land use and environmental law and permitting, including the use of innovative land use regulatory tools and sustainable development techniques on behalf of the private and public sectors and the successful redevelopment of infill properties under federal, state, and local regulatory regimes. He is also an Affiliate Associate Professor in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington, and contributes regularly on urban development topics for several publications including The Atlantic, The Atlantic Cities, Grist, The Huffington Post, seattlepi.com, and myurbanist.com. His upcoming book, Urbanism Without Effort (Island Press, 2013) will be available this Winter.

Nate Cormier, PLA, LEED AP is a Principal at SvR in Seattle. He earned a masters from Harvard University in landscape architecture, but spends a surprising amount of time with civil engineers. Nate is currently leading the design of Bell Street Park and the Yesler Terrace public realm. He is also a Lecturer at the University of Washington College of Built Environments, a Board Director of the Landscape Architecture Foundation and an Executive Council Member of the Green Seattle Partnership.

Roger Valdez is director of Smart Growth Seattle, a partnership promoting a fresh land use code to manage neighborhood growth. It collaborates with homebuilders and other stakeholders to help city government adopt codes that are appropriate for meeting housing demand and preserving neighborhood character.

Scott Surdyke is a development consultant who has lived in Seattle for 23 years. He is originally from Baltimore, where he witnessed the transformation of that city's waterfront. Scott has served on the Seattle Design Review Board (NW Sector), and is an advocate for waterfront and transit-oriented development . He travels frequently to other cities and tries to understand what works well there, and believes that learning from those successes can help Seattle as it faces the challenges of growth.

Jon Silver is a DJC reporter and special section editor who has been living in Seattle since 1998. He gained his street smarts growing up on the mean cul-de-sacs of a master-planned community in Omaha, Neb.

Lynn Porter is the architecture and engineering editor at the DJC. She previously covered real estate for the newspaper. Porter loves cities and the urban landscape despite having a sense of direction that gives her a 50-50 shot of going the wrong way when leaving any building.

She has her own ideas about zoning, transit, historic preservation and other issues involving Seattle, but thinks yours are probably more interesting. So please offer your comments, and if you have news tips, contact Porter at lynn.porter@djc.com or at (206) 622-8272.